Mitch Ives
Forum Replies Created
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[Barry Green] “AVC-HD is not AVC-Intra. One’s a slightly-improved HDV, offering more compression efficiency, long-GOP 4:2:0 and uncompressed audio. The other’s a near D5HD caliber codec with intraframe-only 10-bit 4:2:2 encoding and full raster 1920×1080.
Both are based on AVC, hence the confusion. The AVC-Intra codec card (by itself) costs more than any AVC-HD complete camcorder on the market.”
Barry,
Where can someone find info on the AVCHD format… codec, compression, data rates, etc?
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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[walter biscardi] “You do realize the Xena has been out almost a year now on the PC? It’s been very successful for AJA. “
Yes. Everything looks successful in the early years… time will tell. That’s why the measure of any new business is to still be in business at the 5 year mark. Anyone can do things well for a year or two.
[walter biscardi] “I don’t see their resources being hurt in any way, especially seeing the unveiling of the Io HD at NAB. That was a nice piece of work and not something I would expect from a company that was having cross-platform issues.”
The Io HD has a lot to prove, and it would appear you have more confidience than I. I was a very early Io adopter and a long suffering user. Even in the end it still had issues and tradeoffs. It’s a nice product, but an serious user will probably express similar thoughts. That’s why most Io users love the simplicity and reliability of the Kona. The HD version of the Io looks interesting, but I expect a lot of teething… time will tell.
[walter biscardi] “As a follow-up and doing some more research.
AJA has been creating Windows products for 8 years now and counting. Originally as OEM equipment and continuing now with the Xena product. The Xena is two years old now, not one like I originally thought. The Xena is AJA’s PC card. The Kona is AJA’s Mac card. AJA already has a solid reputation on the PC. AJA has a solid reputation on the Mac. So what is the fuss here Mitch? “
In all of my conversations, AJA has been, (by their own admission) primarily a Mac developer. The Xena was originally billed as a “monitor output card”. This is from their own mouths.
In conversations with AJA, I have expressed my concerns about their increased efforts in the PC area. This is a perfectly acceptable business move, but only if it has absolutely no ill effects on the bread winner, which is the Mac line. To their credit, they have admitted that many others have expressed similar concerns. Some inside AJA have expressed concerns as well privately. I’ve seen this too many times, and I hope you are right Walter and that I am mistaken. I guess we’ll know if we have to start putting off equipment upgrades because AJA doesn’t have updates in a timely manner for the Mac FCP products. Adding Premiere support, as well as the PC side is extending their reach quite a bit.
I understand why DeckLink developed the PC products. They felt they had gotten shafted by AJA partnering with Apple on the Io and leaving them out in the cold. They started with Mac products, but with the AJA/Apple partnership, the move to the PC makde some sense, even if it did slow down driver releases… and accelerate the demise of PCI-X products a bit prematurely.
I’m still trying to figure out AJA’s motivation. In the words of Paul Brainerd… “we fell in love with the size of the market, when what we should have focused on was profitability, not market size”. Mercedes and BMW both understand that… they each have a lower market share than Apple, but make more money than the larger market leaders…
Given the ever increasing Mac and FCP market share, AJA should have been able to make an obscene amount of money with only Mac based FCP based products. I hope this all works out for them, because they were my favorite company… doing everything better and faster than any of the others. One can only hope they aren’t over-extending…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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[Shane Ross] “Where are all these PC posts in which you speak? I haven’t seen one…”
I have… but I predict thay will be lost in all the Mac Premiere questions…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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[JeremyG] “Yeah, I really don’t know and Mitch seems to have disappeared with subtlety.
“I love your sense of humor jeremy, which is why I made the previous post. Not disappeared, though I’m sure some would applaude that… and apparently not so subtely…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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[Bob Zelin] “Hi Mitch –
I bet you couldn’t wait to see my response. “Now Bob, you know I’d stand in line to hear your thoughts…
[Bob Zelin] “Everything in the day to day life of all editors is starting to revolve around AJA or Blackmagic hardware. “
Yes, and AJA is about to give up their edge over DeckLink. Ever since DeckLink went cross-platform, they have been slow to release updated drivers. Fighting a two-front war is not for small companies, and it’s why we went back to AJA. Now, we’re about to lose that. I had an interesting conversation with Paul Brainerd, the founder of Aldus after they went cross-platform. It was the biggest mistake they made according to him. The tech support calls on the PC side ate up all the increased revenue and resulted in him having to sell to Adobe.
[Bob Zelin] “So Mitch, do you prefer Illy coffee, or Starbucks, when using the Kona LHe on your MAC Pro ? “
I try to avoid Starbucks. I don’t think I should be able to drain a large iced cappucino in three draws on the straw, leaving me with a mountain of ice…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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[Michael Palmer] “PC is Xena from AJA
They do have their own place
https://forums.creativecow.net/viewforum/217
MP”I can see that subtlety is lost on you guys.
I know there is a Xena forum, which begs the question, “why do we have to wade through all the PC posts on this forum”?
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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[walter biscardi] “It’s the Fusion family that’s on their website but I’m not exactly certain if this model number is for sale yet. It was a 4TB model and it worked extremely well.
” target=”_blank”>https://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusionfamily/index.html”
Thanks Walter. How many drives were in that model… 4, 5, 8?
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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[Bob Zelin] “Walter tested out the new SAS RAID 5 product, not the 500P port multiplier that you refer to. “
I take it that this is a new product that isn’t on their site yet?
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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[Bob Kohler] “I just upgraded FCP to 6.0.1 and now Pansonics new codec AVCHD works flawlessly!
FCP new Transfer window immediately recognized the files and imported the clips. It’s just like using P2 cards but smaller.”Bob, did you use a card reader and mount the card on the desktop… copy the files to the HD first… or just use a firewire cable to connect the camera to the Mac.
Can you explain your workflow?
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5
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We could still never get all of the functionality to work. Tascam confirmed the problem. You might want to compare the functionality of the Mackie… it does more than the Tascam when using third party cards. The Tascam is a great unit and works well in the absence of any hardware…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.comApple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5